


close is not close enough (until we cross the line)

by minigum



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, POV Female Character, POV Second Person, Reader-Insert, Sexual Frustration, Sexual Tension, Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21587959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minigum/pseuds/minigum
Summary: You have the hots for your boyfriend, but he remains seemingly clueless.
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Reader
Comments: 7
Kudos: 44





	close is not close enough (until we cross the line)

There’s something to be said, you think, about the way you collapse into the seat with an immediate groan, your forehead finding a new home on the flat wooden surface.

‘Is this how we’re greeting each other now?’ Despite the question from the opposite side of the table, it’s laced with amusement, and you earn yourself several sympathetic head pats for your efforts. The same lilt is much too apparent in the curvature of Minghao’s smile when you raise your head to give him a weary look, and as soon as you make eye contact, he continues talking. ‘Boy trouble?’

For a moment, you debate asking if Minghao was announcing his title – there were very reliable sources testifying as much. Regardless, he _is_ attempting to be helpful, even if his tone is also giving you the mild urge to kick his ass. Such was a common occurrence in your friendship, and a feeling you’ve learnt to associate with him.

‘Something like that,’ is your non-committal response. In name only, because Minghao had picked up on who the boy in question was as soon as you sat down, and before that, even. Before that, because while he did often incite harmless ire within you, he had also since become one of your closest confidants as well – knowing more than aforementioned boy in question did.

Not that you trusted the latter any less, especially because said latter was your literal boyfriend, but there were some things – or, well, more like _one_ thing – that you couldn’t really talk to Joshua about. Namely, your very present case of what you’d dubbed as the Boning Blues™️, a fancy, alliterative way of saying you needed to get laid. You needed to, but any desire to act upon this was cut short by your absolute willingness to wait until he was ready.

‘I think you’re overcomplicating things.’ This is what you came to Minghao for – you’re certain anyone else you’d gone to would’ve asked why you hadn’t spoken to Joshua about this, to which your response would be a definitely extremely serious _wow_ , why hadn’t you thought of that before in all your time spent mulling over this subject? ‘We’re all pretty simple creatures.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ you reply. God knows Minghao’s schtick was some exercise in duality – you’d narrowed down his description to ‘artsy fuckboy with a heart of absolute gold’ only somewhat recently, and he was still regularly surprising you. (When you told him you’d thought of him as much, he’d laughed and mused out loud as to whether he should get that on a business card as a testimonial.)

‘I’m just saying,’ he pauses to take a sit of his hot drink, some kind of healthy herbal tea for mister health man himself, ‘if you made a move on him, you might be surprised at the results.’

He’s probably right, and you tell Minghao as much – there’d always been a certainty with Minghao that made you want to believe him, and you’re sure that if it were anything else, you would have done so. ‘I just don’t want to screw things up,’ you confess, with a softness that spoke of vulnerability you trusted Minghao enough to express.

It would be one thing if you’d made it official with some other bozo, but this was Joshua, who you’ve known long before any confessions were made between the two of you. This was Joshua, who you felt for to a degree that would probably have the edgy 2000s version of you going _gross, feelings_. This was Joshua, who you wanted to lovingly raw senseless. Emphasis on the loving. And the senseless.

See, the problem here was never about you feeling as if you couldn’t talk to him, nor was it that you lacked the will to initiate things yourself. The problem here was that not only did you _not_ want to pressure him, but there had also been no signs he had wanted things to progress any further than where things were now.

There hadn’t, because even though Joshua held an innate mischievousness behind whatever front he projected to most of his peers (of which there were a _lot_ , your boyfriend knew what felt like most of the student body), he was, to his core, a careful person. Not quite the ultimate gentleman a lot of people had penned him as – he was simply a little too impish for that – but very careful, very considerate, and very controlled.

You can sense it every time he kisses you, the movement of his mouth marked with an underlying layer of hesitance. It’s not quite in the way he falters, because he doesn’t – gentle as it is, his lips don’t pause when they slide and catch against yours, not unless he’s pulling away from you. It’s more so in how he has never given you any indication that he wanted the kiss to deepen any more than it already had.

You can sense it in how he touches you, too. Not to the point of it being a cliché, or anything like that – you are not spun glass and he does not hold you as such. You are no trembling frailty and he does not treat you as such. Rather, Joshua’s grip is ever firm in its resolve never to stray, in how it’s always your shoulders or your waist, never anything too below or between or otherwise. It’s sweet, though it does mean that some nights on your lonesome see you literally taking matters in your own hands.

(Those nights often ended the same way – with you wondering what he’d think if he knew just how often you thought about fucking him.)

* * *

‘Hey, you.’ You’re pulled into a hug as soon as you reach Joshua’s dorm room, and he offers you a chaste peck in greeting before shutting the door behind you. The gap, you’d thought, between his neat appearance and his less than neat sleeping quarters had always been something you found endearing. Even now, it’s cluttered – not messy, _cluttered_ – with his belongings, and he makes some attempt to tidy as you rifle through his mini fridge.

‘How was Minghao?’ He asks, some time later. 

Mid-sip of the bubble tea he’s bought you from the on-campus Gong Cha, you initially offer him a wordless nod. ‘He was good,’ you respond, once you’re able. Helpfully annoying and annoyingly helpful, as per usual, but good. ‘There’s a pub crawl thing his friends are throwing to celebrate the end of semester and he was wondering if we wanted to go.’ That part was true enough, but when Minghao had suggested you invite your _lover boy_ – he artfully dodged the kick you aimed at him underneath the table – there was a smile on his face that suggested trouble.

‘ _Do_ you want to go?’ Joshua sits across from you, having decided his clean up was good enough, and you feel the bed dip underneath his weight. Somehow, clad in comfy clothing with his attention now wholly yours, these are the kind of moments amongst many where you find you want him most. You wonder if he notices how your eyes flit across his features, forging a path your touch itched to follow – alongside the soft, undeniably _pretty_ qualities of his face, the neck of his t-shirt lowers in a way that exposes the dip of his collarbone. 

‘Yeah, I do,’ you reply, as if you hadn’t been thinking about all the ways you could leave your mark – or marks, rather – on him. ‘We’ve got Seungcheol’s pool party the day after, but it should be okay so long as we don’t overdo it.’ In any case, it had been far too long since you’ve had anything to drink – exam season had a habit of putting that on hold, especially since it was not often you had the masochism to combine a potential hangover with a cramming headache.

Skipping the pool party wasn’t an option, either. Selfishly, it gave you an excuse to admire the view, one that was all the more improved through aquatic means, which would make for a lucrative deposit to the spank bank, to say the least. Not that there wasn’t plenty material there already, with a notable increase ever since you began regularly visiting each other’s rooms, but more never hurt.

It’s a definite contrast, you think, to the early days where much of you getting off to the thought of Joshua was somewhat ridden with guilt (A.K.A. guilt nutting, or so a regular intrusive voice had claimed during these times), mainly because he seemed so at ease with taking things slowly while you had your own libido to contend and wrangle with.

Fortunately, Minghao, who had been your confidant for these things by virtue of being trustworthy and also nonplussed about your giant metaphorical boner for your boyfriend aside from some good-natured teasing, had pointed out that there was no reason for the post-self coitus shame – it wasn’t as if you were pressuring Joshua into anything.

There was also the gently mocking statement of _oh no_ , you’re using someone in which you’re in a committed monogamous relationship with as wank fuel you _absolute tart_ that he had made as well, but that perhaps spoilt the sweetness in Minghao’s reassurance. It did, but Minghao would not be Minghao without the constant mild degree of shit-stirring present in his niceties.

‘I guess I’ll go too then.’ His next words come with the addition of a small smile, which, to the objective eye, seemed innocent enough. To the subjective eye however, and your own at that, you knew Joshua enough to pinpoint it as mischievous, especially when paired with a certain sparkle in his eye. ‘To make sure you don’t go out unsupervised. You know.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ your huff is one he knows is faked, because his expression doesn’t change. ‘Who got smashed and drunkenly serenaded who last time?’ You loved your boyfriend, really you did, but he was not a natural poet while sober, neither was he when inebriated. His covers fared much better, though despite your critique you loved hearing his voice in general – you’ve spent countless hours as a disgustingly captivated audience as he played his guitar for you from the corner of the room where it was always stored.

(But could anyone blame you? It was difficult not to be captivated, an ordeal and a half not to be completely focused when you watched him play, and you mean _really_ play, although there were moments where he brought it out for more comical reasons. It was those moments however, the ones where he’s caught up in expressing his emotions through acoustics, where you find that they’re the same times where you are caught up in _him_ and him alone.

With his eyes fluttered shut in concentration, with his fingers practiced in the way they hardly ever missed a beat, with his singing gentle and yet no less entrancing, soft and yet no less alluring – you are spellbound, you are bewitched, you are transfixed. There could be magic in his voice and you’d believe it, which is why you wanted to hear it in other contexts as well.)

Joshua’s response is to blame the game of beer pong that he had been roped into earlier that night.

To which a tiny grin blooms on your face. ‘I know. You’ve always had bad luck when it comes to those kinds of things.’ The undisputed rock paper scissors antithesis-of-a-champion, he was. It was hilarious and a little cute, but mostly hilarious, especially when you thought about how such a statement would earn faux exasperation from him, probably because of how true it was.

‘Thankfully I don’t always have bad luck,’ at your look that told him to elaborate he continues. ‘I’ve got you, don’t I?’

‘Yuck,’ you tell him, but despite your eye roll, you are unfortunately still smiling.

‘ _You_ like it.’

‘Nobody asked, Hong.’

* * *

A few bars into the pub crawl and your boyfriend is already buzzed. You are too, courtesy of a few cocktails, but judging by the way you’re much steadier on your feet, he’s a tad further gone than you are. Of course, when you point this out to Minghao, who was playing pool at the time, he had said it was your fault for dating a twink.

Which, considering his own lanky linguini ass, was pretty rich, coming from him.

Mayhaps you shouldn’t be surprised though, judging by the fact that this wasn’t the first time Minghao had labelled Joshua with a less than flattering title. Or at least in the way it made you feel like he was calling you out. Really, it had taken one ‘:3cʼ emoji within Minghao’s general vicinity to have him asking you as to whether or not you were ever going to tell him that you were canoodling with a furry. (You had thwacked him around about the time he asked you if that meant you could tell him the definition of yiffing.)

This bar is probably the busiest of the night, bustling with university students, usual patrons that looked a little disgruntled, and cocktail waitresses flitting to and fro from person to person. It’s nice enough despite the activity, with no suspiciously sticky flooring nor the scent of alcohol mixed with a mystery bodily fluid lingering like an unwelcome guest. Not the worst, but not best, either.

‘So, here’s my favourite underclassman!’ Your body jerks to one side as an arm enthusiastically wraps itself around your shoulder, the body tipsy enough to underestimate physics to some degree. Thankfully, recognition had dawned the moment Seungcheol spoke, and you were fond of him enough to not mind the sudden bout of affection. He had effectively adopted you after your arrival on campus, and that was a while ago.

Returning the previously one-sided hug, you offer a greeting that’s a smidgen less enthusiastic. Not because of any lesser feelings on your part, but because of how after a couple of beers, Seungcheol’s jock-bro self had a tendency of making an appearance. He even thumps your back for good measure before pulling away. ‘Long time no see.’

‘Tell me about it,’ his face is a little pink when he parts from you, but other than that, he looks mostly lucid. ‘Exam season kicked my ass.’ But it was okay, he continued, immediately perking up, that was why he was here tonight. After all, what else were pub crawls good for?

‘Cheap drinks?’ You offer, even if the question is a rhetorical one. Seungcheol cheers in a wordless agreement and high fives you, the impact enough that you have to resist the urge to shake your hand afterwards to soothe the sting. It helps that you’re used to it by now – this wasn’t the first time you’ve been around him while he was drunk, and probably not the last, either.

‘You’re still coming tomorrow, aren’t you?’ He eventually asks, after some degree of small talk.

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’ Your reasoning was hardly of the most innocent variety, but Seungcheol didn’t have to know that. ‘Me and Josh can’t wait.’

At the mention of his name, Seungcheol straightens up as if he had remembered something. ‘Joshie-boy! My man. Or well, yours. How’s he been?’ Then, in a more suggestive tone, ‘How have the two of you been?’

‘He’s been good,’ is your initial answer. ‘We were all kind of under dorm arrest because of the end of semester, so I think he’s glad to be able to get out and not have to worry about anything.ʼ As for the two of you… ‘We’ve been good as well.’ No complaints aside from the minor inconvenience of having to deal with how attracted you were to your boyfriend, but that wasn’t even a genuine problem.

In any case, while it was happy hour, it was too early for sappy hour wherein which you’d be more willing to spill deets that you would normally have kept under minor lock and key. Which accounted for your lack of gushing when it came to your relationship with Joshua – the problem was never that you didn’t like him enough. It was that you liked him too much, to the point of legitimate frustration. And also plain pent-up frustration.

‘Okay. You let me know if it changes from good to anything else, alright?’ He seemed like a nice enough guy, but Seungcheol worried because he had always been a walking father figure at heart, and men could be wolves. ‘If he does anything to you, then I won’t hesitate to give him the old one-two. Mano-a-mano.’ You are amused by the brief image of the two of them facing each other off while inebriated, which has you toying with the idea for a few seconds.

‘Thanks, _dad_.’ Despite your tone being one of mild jest, the appreciation is entirely genuine. ‘I think I could take him on, if it came down to it.’ Minghao’s assessment of your boyfriend’s twink status was not exactly untrue, to be fair. You might’ve had an obvious type, and it happened to be guys whose asses you could easily kick.

Seungcheol looks over at where Josh is chatting amiably with some friends from his a cappella group. ‘I think you could too,’ he says, after a beat. But, and his next words are teasing, Joshua might enjoy that kind of thing, which made for a poor consequence to dish out if he did in fact hurt you in any way. After all, few things weren’t enjoyable when it was dished out by someone gorgeous.

It’s possibly very telling of the current state of your sex drive when your stomach swoops at the thought of Joshua enjoying said kind of thing, a voice in your brain immediately going _I wish_. Still, when you respond, your tone is full of light-hearted mirth. ‘Are you sure you’re not talking about yourself, _gorgeous_?’ I mean, you have had plenty of people talk to you for the sole reason of finding out Seungcheol’s relationship status. At his sheepish expression, you laugh.

Soon after, Seungcheol spots ones of his friends, and after bidding you a farewell, takes his leave.

* * *

The night proceeds as well as one would hope with the assistance of alcohol – the third bar has a karaoke machine ends up being utilised to its fullest potential. Amongst others, of which there were many, Joshua sang what had been collectively known as his anthem amongst his peers (you began calling it a snake anthem after one fumble in which he said _shed some skin_ instead of the actual lyric, but that’s beside the point).

He manages to rope you into singing one song with him as well, though he’s assisted by his friends encouraging you through loud cheering and wolf whistles. You accept after a good-natured eye-roll, and when you join Joshua on stage, you reach for the outstretched hand he offers to you, unwilling to admit that the goofy grin he offers you has your heart skipping a beat. Gross.

As it turns out, the fourth bar ends up being your last. It’s late enough that Joshua’s gone from his sillier self to a sleepier one, and when you find couches in the back that are somewhat hidden from public view, Joshua takes immediate advantage of them. Of course, he makes you take advantage of it alongside him.

Or, well, he doesn’t _make_ you, but you could hardly resist him in this drowsier state. Not with the way his voice dips into something tantalising, not when the gaze he fixes with you is narrowed in what is no doubt lethargy, and yet, there is an element to it that is undeniably alluring. God, you hated how he much he could affect you despite having no idea. ‘Come sit with me?’ He requests, and yet, the moment you do, he pulls you into his lap, face making a beeline for your neck.

This cute, you can’t even muster the will to be remotely combative towards him. ‘That tickles,’ is the most you can manage, and even that doesn’t make Joshua remotely budge. Not that you wanted him to, but the fact that he’s smiling into your neck at the comment in a definite cheeky manner has your throat feeling dry. ‘How are you feeling?’ You ask him. If he notices how you shiver when his hands begin trailing the length of your arms, he doesn’t say.

‘Good.’ The word is breathed into your skin and you swallow. Mentally, you curse how hyper aware you are of his every move – it’s the sweetest torture, you think, being this close without the means to do much else but stay. ‘You looked really good tonight.’ I mean, he continues, a small ramble as he adds that you always did, but tonight… his voice trails off, and he noses your neck in a nuzzle that almost brings out a squeak.

The worst is perhaps, the way in which no one is watching you. Most of the pub crawl attendees have left, with the barest skeletal remains of the rest hanging around the bar. It means you’re running out of excuses not to kiss him, and in the end, said excuses turn out to be for naught when you do end up caving. Joshua blinks at you when you turn to face him, tilting his head in a manner that’s adorably questioning when you press your lips to his.

He tastes like alcohol. Wine mostly, something that’s sweet and sharp in equal measure as he returns your kiss. It’s slow, reflective of his current languid state, and you make no move to deepen it before parting from him. When you do, it’s as if he’s stuck in time – his eyes are still shut, tongue darting out into a drag that wets the line of his upper lip in a movement you can’t help but watch. Joshua only begins to return to what felt like this earth when his eyes flutter open and a goofy grin slowly spreads on his face.

‘You’re dumb,’ you say, but your voice is much too quiet to have any real effect.

‘You still like me, though.’

‘Unfortunately.’ A brief pause. He then breaks the eye contact and looks bashful out of nowhere, enough that you notice immediately. You do, even if your head is much too full of some kind of fuzzy texture that has you unable to think beyond what’s right in front of you. ‘What is it?’ You attempt to search his face for clues, but it seems as if he’s actively avoiding your eyes.

‘Can we go home?’ Joshua murmurs, finally.

Oh. Okay.

* * *

After a flicking a text to Minghao to let him know you’d be leaving (as well as leaving his suggestive response on goddamned read), you make your way back to the dorms with Joshua. He offers to bring you home to your room as if you had been the more inebriated one, but you accept the chivalrous gesture regardless, for once having the means to be able to wonder if he’d meant anything else by it. 

Still, while he’s no longer as drunk as he was before, there is enough alcohol in his system that you make it a point not to expect anything. Joshua was a decent guy you just happened to want to do very indecent things to, but more to the point was that he was the exact type of person that would want to do right by you and most likely not want to further anything while under the influence.

So while the combination of his tone and the earlier question could have been interpreted as suggestive (you could hardly deny that a base part of you had interpreted it in that sense, considering you were very much in the mood – stupid sexy Hong), you weren’t going to act upon it without anything more concrete. And, to be honest, there hadn’t really been anything else beyond him nudging towards your mutual early departure.

At least, nothing beyond the usual. He had remained close the entire way home, his hand finding yours with a heart-wrenching ease the second it could, and when you had hopped in the back of taxi with him, Joshua had drawn near, knee against yours while his head found your shoulder. (You had taken his hand hostage in response, fiddled with the joints of his fingers one by one – affectionately dubbed with the quantifier of bigass, his hands had never quite matched his gentle features, much to your misfortune. Misfortune, because you might have become… fixated.)

‘Here,’ once you’ve made it to your room, you offer him a glass of water as soon as you’re able. Joshua gives you a grateful look before taking a sip, and while he’s busying himself with rehydration, you climb onto the lofted bed. You take a gander at your wall of cute things, recalling a past conversation in which Joshua had asked you when you think he’d earn a place on it alongside Apeach.

‘Whoa!’ You turn to see Joshua stumbling, water in his cup sloshing to a degree where it was in danger of spilling onto your bedsheets. Considering he normally had no trouble hopping onto your bed, you suspected some degree of drunken fool remained very present in his system.

‘If you leave a wet spot on my bed, I’m making you sleep on it,’ you warn him.

‘Are you sleeping with me?’ Is his response, once he has successfully joined you on the bed. Thigh touching yours, he sits as next to you as he can, with both your backs to the wall.

What a dangerous question. You had a feeling he hadn’t meant for it to cause something in your gut to curl, but your libido has it doing so anyway without your permission – not that it ever asked. You’d have a much easier time if it did. Even so, your outward disposition does not change whatsoever. ‘Yes?’ Had he expected you to sleep in the armchair across the bed? Maybe the floor?

Joshua tells you if that’s the case, he could live with sleeping on a wet spot. More than that, even.

‘Gross.’

‘You love me.’

‘Doesn’t cancel out the fact that it’s gross, though.’

‘But it being gross doesn’t cancel out that you love me either?’

He has a point, much as you’re unwilling to admit it. You attempt another tactic. ‘Shut up and finish hydrating, Hong.’

‘Aye, aye.’ His smile is understated, as it always is, but there’s laughter in his voice – one that informs you that it’s his victory this time. Most unfortunate, but it was often the case that it was like this – you didn’t exactly have a proper rebuttal when he pulled out the fact that you loved him, because you did. You couldn’t even properly fault him for using it so often either – you knew he often sought acknowledgement, and that he’d brandish said fact with such glee spoke wonders as to how much it meant to him.

When he finishes his water, the weight on the bed shifts as he puts it on the closest flat surface next to the bed, which happened to be a printer atop your own mini-fridge. Upon his return however, Joshua is much nearer. He leans into you once more, and you spend a moment relishing the intimacy – it’s just the two of you in this room, enjoying each other’s company in the dim lighting provided by a lamp on your desk. ‘You alright there?’ A nod. ‘Alright, just checking.’ Soon after, a silence gently settles.

‘I meant it, you know.’ He comments some time after. When you hum in order to get him to elaborate, he continues. ‘When I said you looked good tonight.’ His hand reaches for yours again, and once laced together into a secure handhold, he gives it a squeeze of affirmation. And by good, he continues, he means really good. Really, really good.

His voice is quieter again, at a particular volume that has you on a certain edge – he almost sounds seductive, and paired with his stream of compliments, you find it difficult to resist him, so you don’t. As well within the bounds of his comfort levels as you can manage, you nudge him until he’s facing you a bit more, then plant a kiss square on his mouth as your initial thanks. It’s just a peck, but you wonder if he can sense how much he’s affecting you. You wonder if it was the same for him, too.

‘Thanks,’ your words are just as soft as his, ‘I thought you did too.’ You don’t tell him that his collared shirt was unbuttoned just enough to showcase some of his collarbones – your mouth ached to latch onto the skin and to leave a mark, but you weren’t sure if that was untoward. You don’t tell him how the jeans he was wearing cupped his ass into what felt like its complete plump potential – your hands itched to slip into a back pocket and to _squeeze_ , but you hadn’t wanted him uncomfortable.

You don’t tell him, because you don’t know if he wants you to. You don’t, but your imagination picks up the slack in the best and worst way possible.

Joshua murmurs your name. He does, so you kiss him again. And again. And again. Then he begins leaning in as well, and while they’re all short smooches at first, even the shortest of them have an underlying element that has something in your stomach in tantalising turmoil. They’re all innocent, and yet, when Joshua uses a hand to cup your face, tilting his head so his lips fit even better against yours, there’s undeniable shift.

Because he makes the smallest of sounds. You hear it, because of course you do – you’re wound up so tightly and caught up in relishing everything you can, everything he’s up for that there’s simply no way you would’ve missed it. Joshua sighs into your mouth and your body, which had been side to side with his, turns towards him, seeking the sound once more. If he’s willing to give it to you, you needed more.

Within the bounds of lucidity that remained, you’re more than aware of the precarious nature of that thought. It’s an edge you’re toying with, particularly in the way you press yourself closer and closer to him in your search, but you’re secured quite comfortably by the notion of not wanting to push too far. That didn’t quite stop you from memorizing the noises he made for future reference, but surely, no one could blame you.

‘Mmm...’

Outwardly, you falter for a moment before kissing him a smidgen bit harder, but your body is casually set alight with the idea of someday getting to hearing him _proper_. Still, even with this, there’s something similarly compelling about having him muffled by your own mouth like a secret shared in mingling breaths. It’s to the point where you soon find that you’re some blurry in between of kind of, sort of sitting on his lap, encouraged to be there by how his hands, while just as polite, while just as _chivalrous_ , go for your sides.

They move even, rubbing at the soft curves they find, allowing you to feel the size and touch of those goddamn things in the best and worst possible way. God, you hated his hands so much. Almost as much as you hated how much you wanted them on you, in you, whatever. When his next action is emphasized in a pause wherein which he stops the motion to gently squeeze your hips, you make a sound of your own into the kiss.

It’s undeniably a safe gesture, all things considering. It is, but your damned libido spikes anyway. Traitor.

The time spent cursing yourself is short-lived when Joshua seems to respond to the wordless approval, because he’s all of a sudden much more present, not so much in your personal space as making it almost impossible to think of anything beyond it. Despite the underlying layer of shyness, he is still making an undeniable attempt to deepen the kiss, noticeable enough to endear you in the same way it calls to some baser part of you.

Regardless, you’re amused enough by how into he’s getting, enough though a smile blooms on your lip to the point where there’s a stifled giggle into the kiss. He makes a humming sound in his throat, long enough to qualify as technical whine that while funny, is overridden by how much you wanted to hear it again. Greedy? Maybe. But you were far too occupied with Joshua’s mouth to truly care.

A mixture of simmering lust and lingering amusement makes you bolder, which results in a cheeky bottom lip bite, teeth sinking into soft plushness that earns you a gasp. You’re not given the opportunity to fear you’ve overstepped, because he gets there first – or rather, his kissing does. Because there’s a firmness in the next press of his mouth against yours, a brief reprieve when he _slowly_ pulls away, but when he returns, his lips are parted in a manner that makes it an all too simple matter for you to slip your tongue in between.

But he gets there before you do.

Or, at least, he does in his own bashful-yet-bold way. There’s a nonverbal question on the literal tip of his tongue, once you answer in a surprised _oh_ , because you hadn’t been expecting it. It must’ve been enough to discourage him, because you feel him move to part, surely to ask if you were okay, if what _he_ had done was okay, but you don’t let him worry for long. You had always been quick to reassure, after all, and this was no exception.

More importantly, it meant that tongue was fair game. You greedily drink up the noise he makes into your mouth when you slide your tongue against his, because it’s something breathless, because it’s something that stutters, and yet, there’s a palpable sense of sheer relief after the surprise that has you wondering how long he’s thought about doing this. He must have, if the shy enthusiasm that follows in the way he’s returning the open-mouthed kiss is any indication.

Through tongue and touch, he’s emboldened enough to for his thumbs to slip underneath your shirt. They remain dutifully at your hips, but they’re perhaps unfairly effective at getting your attention with the fact that they’re touching you without a physical buffer.

Still, you want to make it more than clear that this new development is welcome, so your own hands seek a path of their own. It’s cartography in motion, a barely-there excuse to feel him up that moves over his neck, his chest, his shoulders – all of which seems to encourage him, because the pads of his thumbs draw slow circles into your skin, a motion that’s dangerously compelling in what it’s doing to you.

At some point, you’re absentmindedly fiddling with his ears, toying with it between a thumb and a forefinger, unintentionally answering a long-standing question you’ve had about whether they’re sensitive. Judging by how he melts, a pleasured sigh that’s only muffled through the kiss and not through any effort on his part, you get the answer you seek. You’re certain that if you weren’t busy with your latest obsession of making out with him, you’d make use of this information further, but it was good to know for future reference.

Your hands fall back down to his shoulder once more, but then they move further still, fingers dragging down his back. Joshua’s spine arches, body unconsciously seeking yours with a gasp, but then he’s pulling from you.

‘Sorry, was that too much?’ You’re trying to gather the pieces of your rationality, but in between the fact that’s he’s quietly panting, blushing an embarrassed pink _and_ in how he looks deliciously rumpled, it’s a slow process. That didn’t quite mean that you weren’t going to check in on him, however, regardless of where your libido was at.

‘N-No! No, I just…’ He swallows thickly, attempting to rid his throat of the husky quality that it had moments earlier. When he speaks again, it’s to reassure you that it was fine – more than fine, even, he was great, he just… the two of you had quite a bit to drink tonight, and shouldn’t… he didn’t want you to think—

He’s rambling somewhat at this point now, but you put a stop to it when you cup his face in your hands, kissing him on the nose. ‘It’s okay. You don’t need to explain yourself. Let’s stop for tonight, okay?’ Maybe when the two of you weren’t so drunk – or rather, when he hadn’t been as inebriated as he was earlier, because you were probably more drunk on him than anything else.

Joshua nods. He’s still a little flushed, and to be honest, he’s cute enough that you kind of want to pull him into _your_ lap, but you’re content to leave it as a thought for now. (You do note that he was quick to tell you that it was because of the alcohol and not for any amount of discomfort on his part.) Your body, however, is less content and continued to remain on mild fire, but you ignored it, already much too aware of its natural talent for being horny.

Of course, despite the silent treatment, your metaphorical boner lasts well into the rest of the night. It persists through the both of you readying yourselves for bed, especially when Josh shucks off his jeans because he wasn’t someone that worrying thought of them as sleepwear. It persists somehow even when you find out Joshua’s underwear was a pair of white boxers with a red love heart print, lame everyman in every sense of the word and yet the answer to whether you’d blow him is still a megaphone yes. 

It persists, because of course it does, disturbing any chance of restful slumber, but what you don’t know is that you are not alone in your suffering. (If only you asked. If only he said something. But neither of you did, so neither of you knew of the other’s anguish.)

Unsurprisingly, the dreams you are plagued with are of the restless, vivid kind, but considering the events they were born from, you wouldn’t have had it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my darling wife.
> 
> (Also, if you've seen this before, don't worry! I'm the same person that uploaded it the first time around.)


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